Us Against You by Fredrik Backman

Earlier this month, Simon & Schuster’s Atria imprint released US AGAINST YOU by Fredrik Backman; it is the sequel to Beartown, a book which has generated some lengthy discussions at our high school. The stories in both novels take place at a small town where hockey championships are truly a focus and “kids get raised with the philosophy ‘the stats never lie.’ Either you’re the best, or you’re everyone else.” As the new novel opens, reverberations from a sexual assault by one of the key players are still being felt and there is talk of disbanding the team. “The idiots won’t say it was Kevin who killed Beartown Ice Hockey, they’ll say ‘the scandal’ killed the club. … their real problem isn’t that Kevin raped someone, but that Maya got raped. … Women are always the problem in the men’s world.”

The story is classic Backman (he also wrote A Man Called Ove and others), with much empathy for those with less power and with anger against the bureaucracy: “it is divided in the way that all worlds are divided between people: between those who are listened to, and those you aren’t” OR “sports are only sports until someone who doesn’t give a damn about sports has something to gain from them, then sports suddenly become economics.” Once again, Backman gives readers much to discuss in US AGAINST YOU which received a starred review from Library Journal. 

Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman

The title character in Fredrik Backman’s Britt-Marie Was Here is truly distinctive.  In her early 60’s, Britt-Marie has left her philandering husband and takes a job at a soon to be razed rec center in the town of Borg, Sweden.  Like Backman’s other characters (see A Man Called Ove), she is out of practice with social niceties and yet is fundamentally a gentle soul who is pulled into the economically struggling community by her “coaching’ of the local youth soccer team.  

Britt-Marie’s obsessive compulsive traits and need to clean may distance some readers, but I found her inner monologues to be charming and laughed out loud at several points in the story.  For me, it was relatively easy to feel compassion for Britt-Marie, the team and their families.  I relished watching her grow and foster neighborly ideas.  If you enjoyed Backman’s other works or Swedish author Bivald’s The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend, don’t miss Britt-Marie Was Here.

Beartown by Fredrik Backman

BEARTOWN by Fredrik Backman, author of A Man Called Ove, was just released this week and has garnered some very positive reviews.  Backman again creates an ensemble of characters who are somehow both universal and yet firmly anchored in their time and place. In this novel, it is Beartown, a small, economically decaying Swedish community whose hope rests on the junior hockey team.  A championship that could revive tourism and interest in the area is close at hand for general manager, Peter Andersson.  Upright and fair, he played on the team years ago, made it to the NHL and has returned with his family, including 15 year-old Maya.

The team’s stellar player is Kevin, affluent and aloof. He’s protected on the ice by Amat, an immigrant with a single Mom. Hockey ensues, a game is won, and a particularly wild party results in tragedy involving Maya and Kevin.  The championship is still looming and the community faces tough moral choices with a financial impact.  BEARTOWN is packed with emotion and will work well for discussion groups.

Another "guilty pleasure" I have been reading lately is THE NIGHT THE LIGHTS WENT OUT by Karen White. After a divorce due to her husband's scandalous affair, Merilee moves her two young children, Lily and Colin, across town in Sweet Apple, Georgia to a new school. There she begins to form a friendship of sorts with her landlady, a real steel magnolia named Sugar Prescott. Merilee is also befriended by Heather Blackford, a very rich, but unfulfilled mother at the school. This is a perfect blend of light romance (with cartaker Wade Kimball) and a murder mystery with "mean girl behavior" being telegraphed awkwardly and often. Gullibility, poor decision-making and trust issues certainly complicate life for Merilee in this novel full of secrets - both past and present.  

Fredrik Backman's new story within a story

I liked A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman, so I looked forward to the author’s new book, My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry, which starts out in an intriguing manner due to the character of Granny.  Unfortunately for 7 year-old Elsa, Granny is not able to stay and protect her for the rest of the book.  Elsa fights bullies again and again at school and the bureaucrats (as in A Man Called Ove) and her Mum seem particularly clueless and ineffectual.

This novel deals with superheroes (something all 7 year-olds need), divorce, remarriage, half siblings and the impossibility of staying invisible in the school cafeteria. I do find Elsa’s ruminations to be charming and heartfelt, but the fairy tale Land of Almost-Awake is, for me, less interesting than real life and the rather dysfunctional characters who live in Elsa’s apartment building. The writing is unique and the story complex. There are many characters and the distortion of 7 year-old perspective, while cleverly created, made reading and interpreting difficult for me. Do pick up this book if you have tons of patience and time for reflection; it received a starred review from Booklist.  The best part of My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry? Its message: “if a sufficient number of people are different, no one has to be normal.”